The World Vegetable Center (WorldVeg) on Monday last week restarted operations at the International Vegetable Genebank following an efficiency upgrade funded by the Ministry of Agriculture (MOA).
A ceremony at WorldVeg’s headquarters in Tainan’s Shanhua District (善化) marked the event, with Minister of Agriculture Chen Junne-jih (陳駿季), Global Crop Diversity Trust executive director Stefan Schmitz and Tainan Mayor Huang Wei-che (黃偉哲) attending alongside representatives from agricultural research institutes and the private sector.
The gene bank was established in 2010 under an endowment program from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. It is the largest public vegetable germplasm collection in the world, with more than 55,000 seed accessions that encompass the germplasms of 330 vegetable species from 155 countries.
Photo: Liu Wan-chun, Taipei Times
WorldVeg has donated more than 700,000 seeds to aid agricultural breeding and germplasm exchange research worldwide.
To enhance the gene bank’s efficiency and extend the storage life of seeds amid threats from urbanization, climate change, biodiversity loss, and emerging plant diseases and pests, WorldVeg last year launched a project to upgrade the facility, with the MOA providing NT$17 million (US$515,042), WorldVeg said in a statement.
Temperature and humidity control systems were upgraded to extend seed viability and ensure longer preservation of genetic diversity, while inventory management and seed distribution systems were enhanced, with the storage capacity boosted 2.5-fold to increase the accessibility of genetic resources, and the efficiency of research and applications, it said.
Chen told the ceremony that the revamp aligned with Taiwan’s commitment to global food security and sustainable agriculture.
By preserving critical vegetable germplasm resources and sharing them with the world, Taiwan supports future generations to address climate change, enrich nutritional value and bolster global food system resilience, he said.
Schmitz said that the gene bank plays a key role in maintaining vegetable diversity.
The modernization of the gene bank would ensure a stable supply of valuable seed resources to researchers, breeding specialists and agricultural workers, assisting them in cultivating high-yield food crops that are more adaptive to climate change to reinforce global food systems, he said.
Additional reporting by CNA
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